


The Final Briefing

by kontrapunkto



Series: Issues of National Security [2]
Category: CHERUB - Robert Muchamore
Genre: Ensemble Cast, Espionage, F/M, Facebook, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kontrapunkto/pseuds/kontrapunkto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the day before every CHERUB graduates, they attend a mandatory briefing about their final mission. This mission will remain with them for the rest of their lives.</p><p>They must be told about the need to conceal their CHERUB pasts from everyone else. This tradition has gone on for years. There have never been major snags. Until now.</p><p>It is 2009 and James Adams is graduating. He is one of the first CHERUBs to graduate into the world in which everyone posts their lives online. The world of Facebook. Keeping up a web of lies about one's first 18 years suddenly becomes much harder.</p><p>Three years later, Lauren Adams graduates. And when the reality of the situation hits her, she is determined to fight back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Briefing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shewhoguards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/gifts).



**29th May, 2009.**

James Adams wasn't the crying type, but even he got choked up as he walked around the campus with Kerry, Gabrielle, Callum and Connor, playing a game of 'do you remember,' and 'this was where.'

The beginner's pool, where he swam his first fifty metres and swallowed litres of water.

Under the tree where he made out with Kerry after coming back from his second mission.

The fountain in which he pissed while drunk and celebrating his 3rd dan black belt (third black belt or third degree black belt?).

"We'll come back every year," declared Kerry, through tears. "We've got money."

James nodded, squeezing her hand.

As they walked back to their rooms, though, they noticed a piece of paper slipped under their doors with a white corner sticking out, just like their first day as red or blue shirts.

James ran towards his, clumsily pulling out the piece of paper which had his name printed in all caps at the top. It had only one other line.

 **8.00 am. Final Briefing. Mandatory.**

"What's this final briefing shit?" he demanded, turning around. "It's our second-to-last day tomorrow, they can't put us on some sodding mission. I refuse," he said. "Tomorrow, we're going to run the obstacle course and I'm going to bloody beat all of you."

Eight bloody a.m. James was going to hunt Meryl down and demand an explanation.

"That's what mine says, too," said Kerry, wrinkling her forehead. She glanced towards the twins and Gabrielle. "What about you guys?"

A shiver ran up James’ spine, chilling him. He only ever got that shiver when he was in a tight spot on a mission or about to face the wrath of some CHERUB authority. Before everyone replied, he already knew the answer.

"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," said Connor, attempting to be conversational, but they could see that he was jolted out of his usual laid-back attitude. "It's almost four. I’m gonna sleep."

If James had been the one speaking, Kerry, ever the pedant, would've said that it was 'later today,' not 'tomorrow.' But she let it pass.

"Goodnight," she said, pushing open the door to her room. James spotted Rafael Nadal and Eastenders posters that were half taken down. The Chinese lanterns that usually dotted her wall, interspersed with Christmas lights, were gone. He and felt a pang as he pushed open his own door and saw his clothes haphazardly thrown into bundles on the floor and into his luggage.

He might have "qualifications coming out of his ears," to quote Amy, but he didn't feel ready to face the real world. Which was daft. He'd faced more of the 'real world' than most of his future peers. _But you haven't faced their version of the world_. The thought snaked into his mind.

\--

They weren't in trouble, this much they were sure about (although James had to admit that it was mostly because Kerry was with them and Kerry never got into trouble) but they still wore pressed trousers, cleaned boots and ironed black shirts. His suspicions were confirmed when the receptionist pointed them right into Zara's office and the chairwoman herself was standing, waiting for them with a smile on her face.

James felt a prickle in his eyes when he realized that he would never again face Zara again while wearing his black shirt but he swallowed, determined to maintain his composure.

"You must be wondering why you are here," said Zara, motioning for them to sit down. "This briefing isn't for your usual CHERUB missions. It is for your final mission, the one that will never end."

The gravity in her voice struck James, and he leaned forward, even as Kerry put up her hand. Zara nodded in her direction.

"Constructing our past, and maintaining it," said Kerry.

Zara looked thrown, but a smile appeared on her face again. "How did you know, Kerry?" she asked. "Did any alumni tell you?"

Kerry shook her head, and James, for the first time, noticed how troubled she looked. Kerry had barely eaten that morning, choking down some cereal while everyone else tucked into fry-ups of bacon, beans and eggs, health be damned.

"No," said Kerry. "I prepared for Stanford by googling it and talking to current and ex-students, and I realized that with the way teenagers use the internet nowadays, we need to explain why we don't have things like Facebook profiles."

Facebook. Initially an exclusive social networking site for Harvard students, it had since opened its doors to everyone and spread like wildfire. James didn't know much about it - no one at CHERUB used Facebook due to privacy concerns and none of his targets over the past few years were concerned with such trivialities. All he knew was that people used Facebook, or FB, for short, to update others on their lives, post photos and videos and perhaps play some games.

 _This was the world of his future university-mates._

"Yes," said Zara. "Remember, you must never tell anyone about CHERUB."

"It's like Fight Club," said Gabrielle, dully. The light had gone out of her dark eyes and she sat unnaturally ramrod-straight. "The first rule of fight club…"

"Once a CHERUB, always a CHERUB," interrupted Callum. He squeezed Connor's hand. "We'll keep it up."

Keep up the facade, for the rest of their lives. Suddenly, James remembered Amy, explaining to him why he had bonded with Kerry and her so quickly.

They had been his teacher and his training partner respectively. He had been lost and looking for an anchor. That's the reason so many CHERUBs marry each other.

The realization hit James so fast.

"All our friends that aren't from CHERUB. Our wives, husbands and children. They'll never know the first 18 years of our lives."

Zara nodded and although Kerry slipped an arm around his back, James had never felt so alone. He wondered what Lauren would think about this.

"Please don't tell any of the current CHERUBs," said Zara. "We prefer that they focus on being a CHERUB now, not what comes after."

James felt guilty agreeing to it, but for the sake of 'national security,' he did. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Callum and Connor having the silent conversation that only identical twins could have.

\--

 **18th September, 2009.**

"What do you mean, you don't have Facebook?" Matt, his new roommate, ribbed him. "Dude, I know you said you've been raised in a military camp, but how can you not have Facebook?"

James growled, already at the end of his rope. "What use is Facebook when you don't have anyone to keep in touch with?" he lashed out.

"Don't you have other military brat friends whose parents get posted somewhere else or something?"

"Email," said James. "You know how that ponce Zuckerberg keeps lowering default privacy settings and selling our details to advertisers. Not ideal conditions for us."

Matt frowned and James wondered how Matt ever got into Stanford, but Matt changed the subject to the various clubs on campus, and James, eager to avoid a return to the prickly subject, started listing all the clubs they _had_ to check out. The legendary Stanford Eating Club was a must. He thought a little mournfully of his waistline, but he had been on a strict diet since he joined CHERUB. He was a university student now. He deserved to cut himself some slack.

Later that night, Matt told James about his childhood in California and James gave him some details from his fictional childhood. Born to a couple that worked as pilots. Parents killed in Iraq, some years back. Education paid for by his trust fund. Little sister still educated on the military base - she had lived her whole life there and after the trauma of losing their parents, didn't want to go to a normal school.

 _Lies, each and every single one of them._

\--

Eventually, he caved in to peer pressure. James Adam's Facebook page, when it was finally created, was bare, with only a few pictures of him, a few more with Lauren, and one or two with Kerry. He filled his profile with likes and interests and subscribed to a pile of Arsenal fan pages, but it couldn't detract from his bare Facebook wall.

Whenever James was alone in his cramped Stanford double (freshman woes), he looked at his other photos that were encrypted within a secure online website. Photos with Callum, Connor, Kyle and the gang. Photos that he didn't dare to put on Facebook when he recalled the security briefing that discouraged CHERUBs to have pictorial proof of their connection with other CHERUBs. A security measure, in case any CHERUB was compromised.

\--

 **29th May, 2012**

Lauren's graduating cohort included Rat and Dante. She was excited. University life held no fears for her – she was confident she would breeze through her three years at the University College of London, although it wasn’t her first plan. If Lauren had her way, she would become an animal rights activist straight out of CHERUB but Meryl and John encouraged her to try university first, telling her that she could meet other like-minded students there and perhaps they could synergize, forming a group together. Lauren smiled as she thought of John Jones saying the word ‘synergize’ – it was a word that seemed more suited to stuffy suits in boardroom meetings than to a mission controller. She had briefly considered applying to Stanford, just to be with James, but he would be a senior during her first year and there was no telling where he would be off to after graduation. Better to find her way, than to follow blindly in James’. She loved her brother but he could be flighty.

She saw her final schedule at 10pm when she finally made her way back to her room after an afternoon with Bethany in town buying all kinds of black accessories for university.

 **8.00 am. Final Briefing. Mandatory.**

She was puzzled, but merely set her alarm for 7.30am, took a long, luxurious bath and fell asleep, already missing Meatball.

\--

She entered Zara’s office with Rat and Dante. Rat had a knowing glint in his eye, but he wouldn’t explain why. Arrogant sod.

Deception had always been a part of Lauren’s life, from the time she lied about James to her parents to protect him to when she lied to her targets and manipulated them; but as the briefing wore on, she realized that she could never escape from the carefully constructed cardhouse of lies.

 _Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we seek to deceive._

James had gone through this, she knew. And he hadn’t told her. He told her about meaningless things instead, things like classes and Kerry and horrible dining hall food and posh _eating clubs_.

“Why didn’t James tell me any of this?” she lashed out at no one in particular. James had kept secrets from her, but secrets of this size, for this long…

“We requested them not to tell any current agents,” said Zara. She fixed all of them with a stern look. “This applies to all of you,” she said, and she looked at Dante meaningfully.

Lauren shook her head.

“This is fucked up,” she said, and walked out.

\--

The briefing played in Lauren’s head at the most inopportune times. During Freshers’ Week, it seemed to repeat like a broken record. Lauren went barhopping with her fellow freshmen, got tipsy, eventually got drunk with the rest of them and talked to more people in a night than she normally did in a week. She got to know her fellow freshers, listened to lectures by inebriated upperclassmen and eventually began to hang out regularly with four other girls, all of whom were also going to read law. But it wasn’t until everyone else began exchanging anecdotes about their lives, during those sleepovers that became all-nighters, that she began to lie and lie.

Her new friends gabbled on about their 6th form colleges and recounted the angst of receiving their GCSEs. They talked about applying to 6th form colleges, getting through that interminable period of waiting, agonizing over A-Levels choices, weighing pros and cons, and repeating the application cycle with all its _Sturm und Drang_ when it was time to apply to university. Their group wasn’t especially diverse – all came from middle-class backgrounds - but even as Lauren talked to other students from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, to international students, questions about her education left her clammed up and silent. Like James, she trotted out the old lie about military camp, parents killed in the war, a small trust fund set up in her name and hoped and prayed that they wouldn’t pry further, wouldn’t become suspicious and try to find the chinks in her armor.

They wouldn’t, not then, when everything was still so new and disorienting. But they did, later. They asked her about details of her personal life and soon, Lauren couldn’t keep up with the lies she was inventing. The Word document in which her fictional past resided, the past that was constructed for her in CHERUB, was growing, with addendums and color-coded sections aplenty. It was too much.

She broke down, in the end, and called James. Found a private spot and, without referring to anything CHERUB-related, told him about her cardhouse of lies. He was worried.

“Keep it together until Christmas hols,” he said, his British accent less pronounced as a little of the Californian accent he was aurally bombarded with everyday began to take root. He sounded stressed, and Lauren wondered whether it was because his senior year was being gobbled up by his thesis on some obscure mathematical issue or because he too was tired of lying.

\--

They met on Christmas Eve. Lauren took James around her university and showed him her usual haunts before they wound up in her small, cozy flat. Neither was willing to broach the subject, so they spoke of less troubling issues, just enjoying their time together, until Lauren mentioned that there had been a lecture on environmental law and it reminded her of Amy, who was running a diving school in Australia with her brother.

“Amy told me that most CHERUBs end up marrying other CHERUBS,” said James, deciding that they should stop dancing around the elephant in the room. “It makes sense, if you think about it.”

Yes, it made sense. To have to keep your childhood, that ephemeral time of your life, secret from your husband, it was enough to give anyone issues. Lauren had sometimes wondered how Zara and Ewart managed the age gap between them, but she realized that she would prefer an age gap with a fellow CHERUB than to have a husband of similar age who wasn’t from CHERUB. Her closest friends would always be from CHERUB – they all had that soldier’s mentality of solidarity, without being completely broken, and to be unable to introduce Bethany to her future husband with the words, “Bethany, my best mate, we met as red shirts kicking the lights out of each other in karate,” filled her with sorrow.

At the same time, Lauren felt trapped. She had broken up with Rat over a year ago and while she missed him, she didn’t want him back as a boyfriend. The thought that her marriage options were confined to the small pool of CHERUB ex-agents angered her. She wasn’t one to play the field, but she knew that she couldn’t ever look at one of her university friends and think, yeah, I’d date him, without the niggling doubt at the back of her mind that would say, why do you even bother, it won’t last, how can you lie to him, lie to anyone you spend most of your time with, for the rest of your life?

She thought of Bethany, kicked out of CHERUB before her 16th birthday, all because she insisted on carrying on a relationship with some guy she met on a mission. They had broken up just before Lauren retired from CHERUB, and Bethany never confided in Lauren whether her two-year relationship had been worth it. She wondered how much of their relationship was based on lies that Bethany was forced to tell.

“Rat, Dave, Shak, Ronan, Jake,” she said, humourlessly, listing some of the male CHERUBs she knew. “Ew.”

James didn’t say anything.

“We broke up,” he said, and it took Lauren a moment to process what he was saying. “I’d been gambling, part-time, with some friends. We were making decent money every weekend and she broke up with me. Said she always knew something bad would come out of my card-counting obsession during that military training exercise with Kazakov and well, you know what happened on that mission.”

Yes, Lauren knew. James and Kazakov had broken all sorts of laws in that baking Nevada desert, years ago, and James had only escaped through a combination of his skills and sheer jammy luck.

“She thinks I’ll be a criminal,” spat out James, bitterly. “She wants me to settle down, leave my troublemaking days behind. She’s dumb, Lauren. Mac said that it was kids with an appetite for trouble that made good CHERUB agents. Not just intelligent kids.”

“There are varying degrees of appetites for trouble,” said Lauren, but she hugged James. She hated him, that day, when he offered her money to go shopping and she knew that he had punched a man and hurt him badly to get away with his winnings, even though she would have hated that man if he managed to get James put into prison and kicked out of CHERUB.

“You try telling that to Miss Goody-Two-Shoes,” said James, trotting out the old insult.

“You fight too much,” said Lauren, but she kept her tone non-judgmental. James pulled a face, but he wandered off to the living room to find the beer that she had promised him, weeks ago.

\--

Christmas holidays ended and James left, taking with him Lauren’s sense of security. She needed someone else who could advice her. Someone closer to home. For some reason, she thought of John Jones.

John wasn’t the sort of person you’d go to if you wanted to talk ad libitum about things. He approached his tasks the way he approached grocery shopping – making a list and then checking things off that list with ruthless efficiency. But he had been a mentor to her and helped her during her first mission with James and Dave, out in the arid Arizona desert. She had never seen him lose his cool and so one night, tipsy from bar-crawling and fed-up with life, she sent him a frustrated email, venting her spleen about having to keep secrets and leading a double life.

He replied the next day, and she could almost hear his dry voice as he told her that while she couldn’t visit the campus because she needed security clearance and that would be a pain in the arse to arrange, she was welcome to visit him at his house. He gave her the address. The postscript of his email said that if she could show up sober, it would be greatly appreciated. She winced. Nothing escaped CHERUB staff, not even an email that, upon rereading, she thought, didn’t betray her tipsy condition at that time.

\--

She arrived at his neat, two-story terrace house the next weekend, bumping into his daughter and her boyfriend on her way in. She had never envied John’s daughter, who led, she thought, a mundane, average life. Until now. They went to his study and she sunk into the office chair he pulled up and nibbled on a biscuit, wondering how to ask him. Somehow she thought he already knew from her frustrated, evasive email.

“How did you do it?” she asked John, at last, biting the bullet. “Keep secrets from your ex-wife?”

John looked at her, his face shuttered and his fingers gripping his wallet.

“She knew I would be in M15 when we met and she accepted it,” he said. “It’s different from your situation. She knew everything about me except details about my current job. Your future boyfriend will know everything about you, if you so choose, but he will know nothing of your childhood. There is a difference between telling someone that you work in the military and have to keep secrets, and not even being able to tell someone that you used to be a spy.”

He downed the rest of his tea.

“I’d appreciate it if this doesn’t become common knowledge, but it’s one of the reasons we split.”

Tears prickled at the corners of Lauren’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, even as she mentally envisioned her life unfolding similarly.

\--

Lauren couldn’t take it anymore. The next day, she called CHERUB’s campus and all but demanded to be put through to Zara. When Zara answered, the weariness in her voice made Lauren puff up even more. She had important business.

“I need to talk to you about the background story we were given,” she said. “There are security issues.”

She should’ve used that tactic with the campus operator, she thought sardonically. Nothing kicked CHERUB into gear like the mention of a security issue. She met Zara the next day, in her office, and began to work her way down her prepared bullet-point list. Question. Answer. Question. Answer.

"Some agents take on different names after they graduate," admitted Zara. "Especially if they anticipate a career in the public eye."

Lauren thought of the high-profile figures she had bumped into during a CHERUB reunion, several years ago. Fourteen-year-old Lauren had thought, this is so cool, all the things that ex-agents get up to! Eighteen-year-old Lauren thought, this is another of a long series of lies, starting from all CHERUBs’ initial name change when they joined the organization.

"Plastic surgery?" grilled Lauren, relentlessly.

Lines appeared in Zara's face. "Once or twice," she said. “That rockstar, for instance. He subtly altered parts of his face over the years and always dyes his hair dark brown. Ginger is too noticeable.”

Lauren felt sick. She continued asking questions, feeling the bile rise in her throat and it all came to a head when Zara told her, gently, that Facebook was still new, give it a few more years and the staff would iron the kinks out when it came to creating believable Facebook profiles for the CHERUBs. Facebook had been around for a long time, and perhaps Zara, well past the age of many Facebookers, didn’t seem to realize it.

“The Facebook dilemma might be new, but this whole living-the-rest-of-your-life-as-a-lie thing is not,” said Lauren, angrily. “Why didn’t you tell us this when we first agreed to become agents? Why didn’t you tell us, after we got our blue shirts, that hey, any relationship, any friendship you have with a non-CHERUB agent after you retire is going to be fucked up with trust issues on your side?”

Zara turned away.

“Lauren,” she said. “Don’t.” And Lauren knew that she had hit too close to home. Zara was still the chairperson, but in shirt rank, they were now peers. White shirts.

“You know,” she said, her voice breaking. “You know because you’ve been through it before. You and who else?” She suddenly remembered Norman Large’s shell-shocked face, remembered the way he crumbled up and remembered the tears running down his plump cheeks as he pleaded for another chance at CHERUB, heedless of dignity.

“Large,” she breathed. “He’s never truly left CHERUB either. And when we got him fired, we pulled the rug from under his feet.” All of a sudden, the crusading feeling of justice that she felt when Large was fired disappeared, leaving her with pity and sorrow. It was not an emotion she ever expected to feel towards Norman Large, he who called her “Puke,” tried to send her team for the 10km run when they weren’t the ones with the least eggs left in that blasted training exercise, and bullied her without reserve.

Zara said nothing, but she looked broken and the last time Lauren remembered her like this it was when Gabrielle was at death’s door from a stabbing and everyone had gathered at the campus’ chapel to light candles and hold vigil. Her eyes were misty and faraway and Lauren knew that there was a story there, but it wasn’t her place to pry further. She had come in to make Zara see sense, not to force her to relive the ghosts of her past.

“Hasn’t the ethics committee said something about it?” she asked.

“It came up, once or twice,” said Zara, finally. “But how do you expect us to solve it, Lauren?” Her eyes focused on Lauren. “If we told you this when you came – play along with me, assume that James hadn’t yet decided to commit to CHERUB – would you have rejected us? Or would you have taken the plunge?”

Lauren stopped short.

“Taken the plunge,” she admitted, in a small voice.

“Would it have distracted you from your missions?”

Would she, as she grew older, learn to long for another life, one with less life-and-death situations?

“Perhaps,” she said. “But,” and here her voice gained strength. “You should allow us to know. Even if it means that we quit before we reach retirement age.”

“It’s not easy to find CHERUBs,” said Zara, and she heard the implied reply towards her previous words. “Training a CHERUB incurs a high cost, Lauren. You are all valued employees of an organization, and what organization wants to spend time and money training its employees, only to see them leave and waste their potential?”

This was messed-up and wrong, but Lauren, who had entered Zara’s office in the white-hot spirit of a crusader, was now forced to step back and evaluate both sides of the situation. There was a degree of manipulation in the absence of truth, but to be fair, CHERUBs never wondered what the ‘normal’ world was. They were frequently placed in situations where the public schools were a load of hogwash and incompetent staff, and no CHERUB would want such a life. Lauren thought of Nicole Eddison, the girl from James’ basic training who quit after a Class A drug showed up in her urine sample. Lauren was in basic training, then. From campus gossip, Lauren knew that Nicole and Kerry almost came to blows, and that Nicole had insulted the value that CHERUBs placed on shirt colours, but apart from that, details were vague, although someone mentioned something about Nicole carrying some deep-seated hatred to old people, something related to her parents’ death. Nicole might have been messed up, but she must have been sent for counseling, and was she happier now? Did she regret having left CHERUB? Or was she happier in her chosen life, filled with Facebook and a past that she could readily share with anyone, save those brief months in CHERUB?

“Can we have a discussion about this?” she asked, finally, all the blind fight gone from her voice, replaced with the calm and measured voice of a negotiator.

“You were right when you said that I’ve been through it,” said Zara, her voice steady and low. “I’d like to think that I’ve overcome it, but Ewart knows about CHERUB so in that sense, I don’t have to lie. Many of us have either overcome it or pushed it to the backs of our minds, I think, but with the world being so connected nowadays, it’s hard to forget things, hm?” She turned to her computer. “I’ll talk to Mac and the high-level staff soon. This is not just an ethics committee issue.”

Something was being done. Lauren didn’t have much faith in unknown bureaucrats, but Zara and Mac had the CHERUBs best interests’ at heart, she hoped. They had to. They had been through this, after all.

“Treat this conversation like you would a briefing,” said Zara. “No specifics. Just say that you met with me and I agreed that something needs to be done.”

Lauren nodded and Zara dismissed her. She walked towards the door, but at the last second, turned around.

“Lauren?” asked Zara, but Lauren didn’t reply, as she walked towards Zara with careful, measured steps and wrapped her arms around Zara. Offering what, she could not say. An apology? Comfort? Encouragement? She didn’t know, but perhaps she didn’t have to know. Zara hugged her, and Lauren, who despised tears, let herself crumble.

\--

She heard nothing from the campus for months, and trudged along, finishing her first year, passing her exams, and backpacking around Europe with her university-mates, whom she had grown fond of, even as she still kept up her voluminous email correspondence with Bethany.

Then, sometime around August, Zara called her, telling her to drop by the campus when she had the time.

\--

Zara didn’t tell her much – there had been discussions, yes, but it was not her business to know the details.

“There’s still a kerfuffle,” said Zara. “But we’ll be introducing a compulsory class, discussion style, covering issues like these, for agents who will retire in a year to ease their transition into the ‘real world.’ I’m sorry, but for certain reasons that I am not at liberty to disclose, that is all we can do for now.”

It was a start, Lauren decided. Zara told her about the upcoming reunion in 2016, saying that they planned to include other CHERUB alumni in the conversation. Refine the plan. Improve it, with the help of those who knew, first-hand, the pain of feeling like a hypocrite.

\--

It was another Christmas, and earlier that night a bunch of CHERUBs from their group had met up to have a swanky Christmas dinner at the Dorchester. Lauren walked back with James to her flat, stuffed and content. It wasn’t the same flat as before, but such details were mere trifles.

“We’re trying again,” said James, as they plopped down on beanbags, stomachs in the air, and Lauren realized that she hadn’t heard his old swagger since that sunny day in Hyde Park. They had brought down criminal organizations, foiled terrorist threats and but in some ways, they were still immature, still had so much to learn. “I don’t deserve her, but for some reason, she likes me. She keeps me grounded. I gotta try, for her sake.”

 _Kids these days, they think they’re invincible. Grow up._

She didn’t know where she had heard that sentence from, but it reminded her of her time in Mac’s office, being reminded that for all her intelligence, she still had her failings, and she was becoming too arrogant, and that she had misused her skills to blackmail James and to break campus rules.

“You’ll always be my brother,” she said.

“You’ll always be my sister.”

And it was those two lines that held them together, continents apart, even as Lauren despised James’ refusal to cut down on his consumption of non-vegan products and he told her to get real.

It was those two lines that convinced them to attend Robert Onions’ funeral months later when he died of throat cancer, shortly after he was released from prison. They stood, hand in hand, for the entire, brief ceremony, and squeezed each other’s hands intermittently. James, Lauren knew, had no reason to mourn Robert, so she wondered as he wept. Before CHERUB, Lauren’s only wish was that her father would snap out of his alcohol-induced haze, stop arguing with her stepmother and make them into a proper _family_ , loving and supportive. But if she had known him beyond his alcoholic rages, perhaps he wouldn’t have continued to be a criminal, which had eventually landed him in the H.M. Prison Longmark, indirectly giving her access to CHERUB and a world of possibilities.

Did everything happen for a reason? Lauren didn’t know.

But maybe Lauren didn’t have to know. She had James and he had her, and that was enough.

The coffin was about to be transported to the hearse.

Lauren broke away from James and walked over to the coffin. James followed, two steps behind.

She saw the pale face of her father, peaceful in death, and had only one thing to say.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

And, right before she closed the lid,

“I love you.”

Behind her, his arm around her waist, James was repeating her words softly, substituting “Robert” for “Daddy.”.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear shewhoguards, I hope that you like this! I tried to make it as canon-compliant as possible so that it could be read as a 'post _People's Republic_ story, the way Muchamore's stories about three future possibilities for James fit into the books. There are too many references to canon events and details to list here, but I can give you a full list later, if you like. I tried to include everything in your prompt. The dates are based on Stanford's 2009/2010 academic calendar and CHERUB's character profile site.
> 
> Thank you to Xrai for reading through this beforehand, and thank you to Xylaria for Brit-picking and commenting on the flow of the piece. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Note: I've only read up to _The General_ so I obtained the rest of my canon knowledge from Wiki. If there are any canon mistakes, please let me know and I'll correct it.


End file.
